Thursday, 28 June 2012

Major General And Brigadier General Captured By The FSA In Damascus

This video has been recently posted online showing a Syrian Army major general and intelligence service brigadier general captured by the Free Syrian Army Update 29th JuneEnglish subtitled version here

The makers of the video have gone to great lengths to ensure both men can be clearly identified, filming close up of their ID documents. On the left is Brigadier General Mounir Shleibi of the notorious Palestine Intelligence Branch

His IDs are shown below

The second man is Major General Faraj al-Maqt of Syrian Central Command

His ID documents are shown below

Both are significant individuals, and the brigadier says they were captured at the Adawi highway in Harasta, a suburb of Damascus. (thanks to @Dsyrer for the translation). This map shows the area they were captured from in relation to the rest of Damascus, with Harasta at the top of the map

It seems significant that senior military figures can be captured in Damascus by the FSA seemingly under the nose of the Assad government, and will no doubt raise serious concerns among senior officers about their own safety.

Bashar al-Assad's brother Maher is also visible in the video around 1:03 to 1:12. Update June 29th Syrian Uprising Info has claimed that the above video may not in fact be filmed at Sednaya, but another massacre.

Update June 29th As the Guardian Live Blog notes Syrian State media made a brief report on the capture of Faraj Shihadeh al-Maqt, referring to him as lieutenant general, not major general as in the above video

An armed terrorist group intercepted the car of pilot Lt. Gen. Faraj Shihadeh al-Maqt in al-Adawi area and abducted him. The authorities are working to locate and free him.

Update June 29th I've been talking to various individuals about the Palestine Intelligence Branch, including HamaEcho and troublejee, who have provided more information about them. To begin with the Palestine branch is one of 15 military intelligence branches under one of 4 intelligence divisions, as listed here. Their name comes from what was meant to be their original function, countering Israeli covert operations, but they've actually been more focused on cracking down on Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood dissidents, as well as being involved with extraordinary rendition, which has involved working with a number of countries post-9/11, including Germany and the US, and they've been involved with the rendition of Mohammed Haydar Zammar and Maher Arar.